Capitol Hill Blue Forums Thread Like Summary - The journey of the cabin to a real house

This story begins in 2018.

In January 2018, I was getting ready to start life as a home owner again after selling my house in the Bay Area in September 2014 and moving to the PNW to work for a specific company. When I lived in the Bay Area, I lived in a 2005 built HOA. There are 10 houses on each street in the HOA. One of the houses on each street was set-aside as low-income housing. I bought my house in November 2008 during the housing crisis. The house originally sold in September 2005 for $410K. I bought the house 38 months later for $207K. The house was only lived in for 18 months of those 38 months, and was practically brand-new still. The house next door to me was the designated LI house on my street. The owner only paid $98K in September 2005.

In January 2018, I Googled "low income housing Tacoma." A news article came-up about a brand-new neighborhood being built in Tacoma for families making $72K or less. The premise of the neighborhood was to be working-class, the house had to kept a minimum of 5 years before it could be sold, and there wa a cap of 3% annal equity the house could sell for. I called the Builder and was scheduled for an interview. Turns out, I was the first interested party to this new venture.

The interview went well, I discussed why I wanted to be a homeowner, and discussed that in my Bay Area neighborhood, there was one houses for LI families. That is how I found this builder as I knew such programs existed. I discussed how I was the HOA President in my neighborhood for five years. The builder was impressessed with my story and the HOA President experience and offered me the opportunity to purchase in this neighborhood, and the be the HOA President for this new neighborhood. I picked-out my lot and put down $500 in earnest money.

The builder was brand new. It was basically a group of good-hearted Tacoma residents who saw the need for such a neighborhood with affordable housing. The idea was to build 72 green, energy-efficient homes on a preserve that the Tacoma School District sold for this purpose as the District was not going to use the land. The land was heavily forested and only 30% of the land was going to be developed for the homes.

Because these people had never done this type of venture before, they had a learning curve to learn how to get this neighborhood built: permits, construction education, etc.


To be continued...

Welp, Larry and I got carried away.

There is almost nothing as fun and exciting as building a house. Congratulations on a long search coming to fruition and contacting the right people to make your dream come true!